


Burgers and Vicodin

by orphan_account



Series: It's A Good Thing We're Pretty... [2]
Category: NASCAR RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you just need someone to understand your pain. Literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burgers and Vicodin

**Author's Note:**

> Original author's note from March 11, 2011: I swear I don’t really ship them together. I swear I don’t. That said... who else would understand about knee surgery? This is a semi-sequel to “The Man-Date”, but you could read it without having read that story.

It seemed like a good idea when I first thought of it, to get both knees worked on at once, but the closer I get to it the more I start to wonder if I’ve lost my mind. The family is over at my place, all of them talking a mile a minute, feeding me, as Shany says, “your last good meal for 24 hours,” but my mind is already in the operating room, running through every little thing that could possibly go wrong during this “simple” surgery. The look on my face must be reflecting my thoughts, because Eli wanders over to me and thrusts his teddy bear in my lap. “Here Uncle Moo! You take Mr. Snuggles.” I take the bear from him and smile at Eli, thanking him for loaning me Mr. Snuggles. I go to sleep that night clutching that bear like it’s a lifeline.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I don’t remember waking up in the recovery room, though I’ve been assured that I did, that the doctor talked to me, and I talked back. Apparently I asked when they were going to let me eat, because I wanted to go have breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Again, I don’t remember it, but I don’t know why Mom would lie about something so ridiculous. I remember only two parts of the ride home -- getting in the car, which was painful, and getting out of the car and into the house, which was more painful. Luckily my bedroom is right off the entrance to the house, and as I sink into the mattress I find myself very, very grateful for that. Mom props my knees up on pillows, and brings me a pain pill and water, along with a plate of Saltines. I attempt to work my pout on her, the pout that got me anything as a kid, and she just shakes her head. She’s done this before, and she knows that anesthesia makes me nauseous. No one is ever going to let me live down throwing up that Big Mac and chocolate shake on the car ride home after I had my appendix removed. I take the plate of crackers and grimace at it, but that doesn’t stop me from eating every single one of them. I finally convince her that I’ll be okay on my own, I just want to take my pain pill and sleep for a while. Before she leaves, she brings my phone and places it on the nightstand, making me promise to call her if I need anything. The second she leaves, I grab the phone and tweet my misery for the world: _Im hungry. Saltines just arent cutting it :)_

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

I wake up what feels like half a day later to the sound of my phone playing “All I Do Is Win”. I probably should change that, considering it’s not as amusing now that he _didn’t_ win, but I’ve had other things on my mind. I pick the phone up and press it to my ear. My voice comes out raspy from the cottonmouth the pain pills have given me.

“You still hungry, or did you eat the entire box of Saltines?” he asks, laughing softly. I look over at the empty plate on the bedside table.

“She didn’t leave the box,” I mumble, as my stomach growls at the same time. He laughs again, just as softly as before.

“I... could bring you something. A burger or something,” he says, and I immediately think back to the last time we spent time together.

“If... if you feel up to seeing me,” he finishes.

“A burger sounds good,” I say, still feeling a little hazy from the pain meds. My stomach growls again, and I laugh. “It sounds real good. But... um... I’m not really up for...” I trail off, not sure how exactly to phrase it.

He gives a short bark of laughter and answers, “Relax, Kahne. It’s NOT a date this time.”

The phone gets quiet, and I realize he’s hung up. _Ooooookay._

\----------------------------------------------------------------

An hour later there’s a knock at the door and then the doorbell rings. I groan, realizing I’m going to have to get up and open the door. I ease myself out of the bed, gingerly put my feet down on the floor, and whimper as I put weight on my knees when I stand up. I think back to the first trips to the surgeon, the consultation, the assuring me that if I started working on strengthening my quads before the surgery, it wouldn’t hurt as much. “Liars,” I growl, taking slow, small steps across the room. The doorbell rings again, and I yell out, “I’m a fucking cripple! Be patient!” A good five minutes later I open the door, and I’m greeted with a bag of wonderful smelling burgers -- and a very shocked Denny Hamlin.

“What in the hell are you doing answering the door?!” he asks, half-questioningly, half-scolding me. I roll my eyes.

“You rang the bell. Not like you were gonna let yourself in.” I step back out of the doorway to give him room to come in, and grab for the bag of food as he passes by me. He laughs and pulls it out of my grasp.

“Chill, Kahne. I didn’t bring all this for me. Where do you wanna eat? Table? Couch? Bed?” He waggles an eyebrow at me with that last suggestion and gives me a shit-eating grin. I shake my head, groaning as I very slowly and carefully make my way to the couch. Of course, he beats me there by at least three minutes, and already has the food spread out on the coffee table before I sit sideways on the couch, propping my legs up. He hands me a burger and a package of fries, and I take three big bites out of the burger before convincing myself to slow down a little bit. The last thing I need is to choke to death. I can see the headline: “NASCAR Star Chokes on Burger After Minor Surgery” and inside there would be quotes from Denny about how I shoveled the whole burger into my mouth like I’d never seen food before. And then he’d make some snide comment about how I _look_ like I’ve never seen food before. Denny eats his food at a more reasonable pace, and I briefly wonder how many hours he’ll spend in the gym to burn off that burger and fries he’s having.

As I finish my burger I start to stretch my leg a little, only to discover it’s a mistake. I squeak in protest at the pain, and Denny looks at me, full of concern. “What? What’s wrong?”

I shake my head, not wanting to admit how much even the slightest movement hurts. I forget for the moment that he’s been in this same situation.

He sighs and starts to gather up the trash. He stands up, then says softly, “Why don’t you go on back to bed? I’ll take care of the trash and bring you some pain meds.” I get up, slowly, and almost stumble as I stand. Denny reaches out a hand, grabs my arm, and steadies me. “Give it a couple days... it’ll get... not as bad.”

I let that soak in as I make my way back to my bed, and he sets about cleaning up our mess. I’ve just gotten myself arranged in bed when Denny comes in with a bottle of pills, a glass of water, and two ice packs. He shakes two pills out into my hand, and gives me the glass of water. He sets the bottle of pills down on the nightstand, and crawls into bed next to me, placing an icepack on each knee. I shiver reflexively and he chuckles softly as he lays on his side, propping himself up on his elbow to look at me. “It’ll help with the swelling. That’s part of why it hurts like a bitch. They pump your knee full of fluid so they can do what they do... you know there’s no way they get it all out when they’re done.”

I just stare at him. Does he mean any time they do knee surgery, or does he mean specifically when they do the surgery I had? I want to know, and yet I don’t. If he spent a bunch of time researching the surgery I had this morning, well... I don’t want to think about what that might mean. Instead, I change the subject. “How are things with Jordan?”

He frowns and looks away from me, over my head, and out the window. He’s silent for a long moment before answering quietly. “We broke up.”

Damn. I didn’t know that. It had seemed like they’d been off and on the last couple of months, but I didn’t realize they weren’t actually together anymore. “What happened?”

He sighs, still staring out the window. “We just...” he trails off, eyes flickering to me before he quickly looks back out the window. “We wanted different things.”

I raise an eyebrow. What could they have possibly wanted that didn’t match up? She looked good on his arm, and she let him do what he wanted, basically. He made sure she got plenty of TV time. They were friendly enough, seemed to care for each other. What went wrong? “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes settling back on me. “She said it was pretty obvious there was something else I wanted.” I wait, expecting him to explain what exactly it was she thought he wanted, but he doesn’t. He just stares at me for a few minutes, and then sighs. “Whatever, right? Chicks are just nothing but drama.”

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that, so I just nod. The pain meds are really starting to kick in, and my eyelids are growing heavy. I yawn, and he chuckles softly.

“Go to sleep, Kahne. I’ll hang around in case you need something.” That’s all the permission I need, and I close my eyes and I’m deep in a dreamless, Vicodin-induced sleep in a matter of moments.

When I wake up hours later, Denny’s still in bed beside me, sleeping soundly.


End file.
